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apr11-offprint-thywissen.pdf

Superconductors are roughly a billion times more dense than neutral gases, but the physical principles of gases and solids have a surprising similarity in their quantum degenerate regimes. In this brief review, we trace a historical path from the early days of weakly interacting Bose condensates to current research in strongly interacting Fermi degenerate gases. Cold atoms can be viewed as quantum simulators able to address open questions about many-body systems. Also tantalizing: if the physics of resonant ultracold superfluids could be reproduced in solids, the critical temperature of superconductivity would be roughly 1000 K, well above room temperature.